Sunday, 24 March 2013

Spartacus Separate Paths review

Wow, I have been watching Spartacus since the very first episode aired and I must say no episode was quite as shocking as this one.

As per usual this season this episode focuses on the two camps and their war against each other, we see from the start just how much Kora leaving has driven Crassius to be quite unstable, he marches his men through day and night hoping to catch up to him, he sends small battalion forward to delay him while his main strength slowly closes the distance between them, his relentless marches though threaten to drive his men to the ground and Caesar yet again shows himself the voice of reason as he pleads for a night's rest. Crassius simply states that any who slow down will be killed on the spot, does this guy know how to motivate people or what?

This episode showed just how much Crassius is pulled by his top two advisors, Tiberius and Caesar both give conflicting advice through out the episode on each move, their rivalry has never been more deadly.Caeser threatens throughout the episode to expose what happened to Kora, hoping in some way to get both father and son to see the reasonable action, when Spartacus splits his army into two, one heading for the mountains and one heading for Rome, Caesar Immediately states that protecting Rome is more important, what use is capturing Spartacus if their Capital is taken? yet Tiberius again aims for glory and tells his father to forget everything and continue chasing Spartacus.

This leads to the most shocking moment I had ever seen, Caesar confronts Tiberius in his tent, threatening to reveal his secret yet again if he keeps on challenging Caesar's opinion, finally getting tired of all this verbal combat the two men decide to slug it out in the good old fashioned way, but just as Caesar gets the upper hand, two guards come to protect Tiberius, he orders them to hold his rival down and in a moment I should have seen coming rapes him.

Their rivalry reaches its climax here...or at least Tiberuis does.

Now they both have secrets on each other, it should be noted that in ancient Rome if two men have a sexual relationship the one who gets penetrated is shamed, yet the man doing all the leg work is considered powerful for his ability to dominate another man, and Tiberuis sure proves that here.

REBEL CAMP.

Now that I am done gushing on team Rome, lets head back to team Spartacus, with no more secure base to fall back on old Sparty is on the run hounded by Crassius, yet unlike his roman counterpart Spartacus knows he cant push his people as hard, he leads a group that has women, children and old men in it, its not the same legion that Crassius has of trained roman soldiers, because of this the gap between the two forces is slowly shrinking.

The option of leaving people behind rises up, as it always does in such situations, let people fend for themselves and allow Darwinism to decide who lives and who doesn't but Sparatacus decides against such an action, prompting Crixus to tell him that if they cant outrun Crassius they should take the fight to Rome instead, a suggestion Spartacus looks sorely tempted to take but in the end decides against it and this marks the separation we all knew was coming.

From history we all know Crixus leaves and makes his own army that falls, and the show follows history closely here but unlike what previous episodes show us the separation wasn't fuelled by anger but by two men deciding that they no longer agreed with each other and chose to part ways amicably, many call backs were made to earlier seasons which made this episode have a very nostalgic feel to it.

I definitely preferred this resolution than the one hinted earlier that it would be anger which drove those two men apart, this felt much better.

Surprisingly Agron who has never had a good thing to say about Crixus( apart maybe from " fucking Gauls") decides to tag along, the life Spartacus promises him of living past the mountain peacefully isnt one he thinks he is meant to and he decides to follow Crixus, leaving his lover behind, Agron knows attacking Rome directly is pretty much suicide and while he may be fine with risking his own life, risking Nasir's as well is something he cant do.

Many other scenes happen of course but they were all predicable things, Gannicus sticks with Sybil this episode instead of Saxa, Spartacus and Laeta get together, etc etc.

History mentions that Spartacus may have impregnated a roman woman before he died and thats probably going to be Laeta, odd how the woman Spartacus bones once get pregnant ( Illythia, Laeta) and they are both roman too... interesting.

FINAL SCENE.

WHAT LIES BENEATH YOUR FEET?!

A chair but in the show we get the classic answer from the second episode of this show, reminding us yet again just how far this show has come in the few short years it has been allowed to flourish.

The fight scene at the end is amazing and probably the biggest show has had yet, violence has always been this show's greatest strength and it does not disappoint here at all.

Sadly despite the early victory of team Crixus, Rome gets backup, Caeser ( while on foot instead of on a horse because for some reason he doesn't feel like sitting on one ) somehow managed to convince Crassis to retreat and protect Rome instead of continuing the hunt, leading to the total annihilation of Crixus and everyone who followed him.

Tiberuis, piercing yet more people with his mighty spear.

An overall amazing episode and easily the strongest of this season, I cant wait for the next couple of episodes.